Acts 1:1-11
Jesus Appeared to His Disciples for Forty Days After His Resurrection
1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
John 14:1-4
Jesus Comforts His Disciples Saying He Will Prepare a Place for Them in Heaven
1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place
where I am going.”
John 11:25-26
Jesus Says He is the Resurrection and the Life
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Philippians 1:21-26
Paul's Perspective of Death
21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me.
I would have loved to talk to the Disciples after Jesus' resurrection and ask them their points of view about death after they had seem their Teacher...Surely their views on death had changed for them after they saw their Master over a period of forty days after His Own death...He tried to convince His disciples that He was still alive in the flesh...He even ate with them to prove He was still a Man and still alive and not a ghost...I really believe that their seeing Jesus over these forty more days gave them a new attitude and a new point of view of death itself...Their definition and how they viewed death, I believe was now much, much different than before His death and resurrection...If any of them were ever frightened of death, I think that fear would now be gone...They truly saw their Teacher alive again after His own physical death on the cross and He would live again...That fact and their seeing Him now gave them a much different perspective on death and the after-death and eternal life...They could now see with their own eyes that He is the Resurrection and the Life and those who believe in Him do live eternally, even though they die...They knew by seeing Jesus alive again that you can survive death...
So Jesus was alive again and what could they say about their own deaths?...The Disciples knew that death would come to them over the next few years...But the Disciples could see with their own eyes that there is, in fact, life after death...Jesus appeared to them at different times, and that there is no reason now for them to fear death...In fact, they would get to go and see their Master again after His ascension into heaven...Because He does not lie, He had told them that He would prepare a place in heaven for them and that He would come back and get them so that they could be with Him in heaven...
So unlike those who do not believe in Jesus, one can see that if we take this Disciples' frame of mind on death they had after His resurrection, it is different than the unbeliever...I think this is why those who were immediately around Jesus in the first century and right after His death died for Him -in the many persecutions of Christians...Those who were persecuted because of their belief in Him, knew that He had resurrected from death and had, in fact, ascended into heaven...From a death point of view, they no longer saw the sting of death... St. Paul had this attitude when he said, "I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body...Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me."...St. Paul was looking at death as this different mode of life, a life even after death...